


First Aid

by Traincat



Category: Fantastic Four (Comicverse)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 13:46:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6053839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Traincat/pseuds/Traincat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Johnny?" Peter said, voice breaking in his disbelief. What felt like years crawling through hell couldn't change the fact that Johnny would know Peter Parker's voice anywhere. </p><p>"Hey, Pete," Johnny said. "What the hell are you wearing?"<br/>_<br/>Peter kisses Johnny on the threshold of the Negative Zone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Aid

**Author's Note:**

> [Day Four of SpideyTorch Week's theme is kissing](spideytorchweek.tumblr.com), which calls for some seriously self-indulgent fic - which for me means more post-Negative Zone fic. I basically wrote this fic already, but not with makeouts, which makes all the difference. Also, I truly believe there can never been too much post-Negative Zone Johnny/Peter fic. 
> 
> A couple references to body horror and gore, because of Johnny's frequent Negative Zone deaths - far less than the actual Fantastic Four 600.

The first person he saw on the other side of the gate was Peter. It felt like a fever dream. Peter was dressed in something new, no familiar red and blue - black and white with a mask that was too blank. He was so still, crouched hazy-edged in front of the gate, not a muscle moving, but it was him. Johnny knew it was him from the way he held himself, his quiet gasp.

"Johnny?" Peter said, voice breaking in his disbelief. What felt like years crawling through hell couldn't change the fact that Johnny would know Peter Parker's voice anywhere.

"Hey, Pete," Johnny said. "What the hell are you wearing?"

Just like that, Peter _moved_ , flinging himself over the threshold. His strong arms came up around Johnny, almost crushingly tight as Peter lifted him clear off the ground. Johnny laughed, real and free for the first time in what felt like forever. Peter's arms around him felt so good - real human warmth, flooding Johnny's veins. Johnny could've gotten drunk off the heat of him alone.

"You're alive!" Peter shouted at the top of his lungs. Johnny wrapped the arm not holding Annihilus around Peter's neck, letting himself hold on for one moment before Peter put him down.

Except Peter didn't put him down. He shifted his hold, keeping Johnny trapped against him with one arm around him just long enough to yank his mask up over his mouth. Before Johnny really registered it, Peter was kissing him, the press of his lips hot and hungry.

Johnny made a little noise of disbelief - Peter, kissing him here on the threshold between the Negative Zone and home. Peter, kissing him at all.

Peter must have read it wrong. He pulled back, corner of his lip quirked in the smile he wore when something wasn't really funny. Who knew how long in the Negative Zone and the quirk of Peter Parker's mouth could still make Johnny ache.

"Sorry, sorry," he said, too lighthearted. Johnny's lips tingled. "Heat of the moment."

Typical Peter, trying to play it off as a joke. Johnny grabbed his face between his hands, heedless of Annihilus' leash around his wrist, and locked his legs around Peter's waist and kissed him back. Peter gasped into the kiss, strong hands coming up to grab Johnny's thighs, holding him easily against him.

"Idiot," Johnny said, breaking away for the briefest of seconds. He said it instead of any of the things he wanted to say - _do you mean it, do you mean it like I mean it, did you know before?_ He wanted to rip Peter's mask the rest of the way up, to see his face properly, but they had company so he only stroked his thumbs across the line of spandex and skin. "You total moron-"

"I like you so much better when you're kissing me," Peter said, catching Johnny's mouth again. "Johnny," he said his name like something special, "Johnny, you're alive. You're alive."

"Yeah," Johnny breathed. "You didn't answer my question. What the hell are you wearing?"

"Reed and the kids designed new uniforms," Peter said, nose knocking into Johnny's as he tried to kiss him again. Johnny fisted his hand in unstable molecule fabric, slick through his gloves, and shut his eyes against the sting. He'd imagined it back in Negative Zone a hundred times - Peter standing tall in blue and black, matching the family. But of course, of course they wouldn't wear it without him. His heart felt fit to burst.

Behind them Annihilus hissed; Johnny gave the chain a vicious yank.

"Well, they're hideous," he said, throat tight and so much brightness in his chest. "It's really me, Pete. Happy to see me?"

Peter laughed, throwing his head back. He let Johnny slip from his grasp, feet back on the ground. He slipped his hands up and down his arms, like he was checking to make sure he was real and whole, and smiled.

"You're alive," he repeated, fingers skipping over the wasp-nest wrapping trapping Annihilus' control rod against Johnny's arm. Peter had never touched him like this before, like he could break him. "How?"

"One of those things," Johnny said, chest aching, the axe coming down in his mind. Peter's gaze caught on something over his shoulder.

"You've got company," he said.

Johnny turned and saw the Light Brigade, waiting patiently, except for the Hooud who was - Johnny didn't particularly want to know what the Hooud was doing, but that was alright. Prax Ord was looking at the ground, blushing the way only a metal man could, but Els Udonta was watching them with interest, her eyes raking over Peter's body. Johnny couldn't blame her there.

He closed his hand over Peter's shoulder. "Spider-Man, the Light Brigade. Gang, Spider-Man."

"Your consort?" Els Udonta asked, quirking one eyebrow. "I approve."

"A fitting welcome for a hero!" Kal Blackbane declared, coming forward to slap Peter heartily on the shoulder. "The lover of our warrior brother is indeed one of us!"

"I have no idea what is happening," Peter said. "But okay."

Behind Peter Johnny could see the gate, and through the gate the lab. Reed's lab, in the Baxter Building. Longing shot through him like an arrow. One simple step and he would be home. His veins felt icy, then molten, his heart like it might beat right out of his chest.

He fumbled for Peter's hand, squeezing once, before he let go and stepped forward. It felt like - something. A change. A prickle across his skin, a charge in the air. The Negative Zone's oppressive atmosphere one second and his own world's cool, crisp air the next. His head spun with it.

Home. He was really home. He looked up and stared out at all that big sky.

"Didn't home used to have a roof?" he said, dragging Annihilus through the gate after him. Annihilus hissed, pulling, so Johnny wrapped the leash around his arm and yanked hard. Peter scrambled after him, hands at Johnny's hip, his waist, elbow, like he couldn't stop touching him. Johnny hoped it was because he couldn't stop touching him. Something streaked across the sky, and seconds later an explosion rocked the building. Peter's steadying hands were on him immediately. "Nice fireworks."

"Yeah," Peter said. "World ending. Kree invasion. You know the drill."

"Yeah," Johnny said, looking up at the sky. His flames itched just under his skin, longing for all that air, his own sky. And out there, somewhere, without a doubt, his family - being brave and brilliant and fantastic. Keeping his feet on the ground suddenly seemed impossible. "I certainly do."

Peter was grinning. Johnny knew it, even with the mask yanked hastily back in place.

"Here," Johnny told him, holding the leash out. "Hold my Annihilus."

 

* * *

 

Back at Peter's apartment Johnny slept for fourteen hours and woke up alone in Peter's bed. He lay there for a long time, soaking up the sun's rays. He could feel the faintest impression of Peter's body heat, knew that at some point during the night Peter had been stretched out behind him.

He could hear him in the other room, fingers clacking against a keyboard. Slowly, every muscle aching, Johnny climbed out of bed.

He stood under the shower spray until the water had long run cold, washing away a battle's worth of grit and two years worth of the Negative Zone's foul air, and dressed himself in Peter's clothes - sweatpants and an ancient ESU shirt, worn thin and soft. He still felt tired, and lost, and a little bit like he was dreaming.

The floor in Peter's kitchen was slightly sticky, a cereal bowl abandoned on the table. Everything here in his own world was so soaked in color his eyes hurt.

"Can I leave the cosmic control rod in your freezer?" he called.

Peter's leaned into the kitchen, eyebrows drawn together quizzically. "Yeee-ees...?"

"Cool," Johnny said, cracking the fridge.

"It's not going to irradiate everything in there, is it?" Peter asked, looking slightly hopeless. "Because I've got some frozen mac and cheese I was saving for a special occasion."

"Don't think so," Johnny said, digging around in the freezer. He could feel Peter's gaze fixed on his back, but when he glanced over his shoulder Peter was studying his own kitchen wall like he'd never seen it before.

It had seemed so obvious, to take off with Peter - he loved his family, but he'd spent so long without them he didn't know how to deal with all of them surrounding him anymore. He'd felt suffocated. He hadn't felt suffocated with Peter.

But here in Peter's apartment, out of costume, everything felt wrong.

Maybe the mask was the problem - everything had always been easier for them when Peter was wearing it. It sucked how Johnny liked his face too much for that. Or maybe it was the look at Johnny in better lighting that had done it. He almost hadn't recognized himself in Peter's bathroom mirror, face too sharp, nothing but hard fought muscle and bone on him.

There was a carton of ice cream in the back of Peter's freezer. Johnny knocked it aside for the cosmic control rod. The carton was cold enough to stick a little; Johnny tossed it between his heated palms until it was less like a rock.

The first bite was shockingly sweet - Johnny remembered sugar, shutting his eyes at the first rush of it.

He couldn't remember the last thing he'd eaten here on Earth, or what he'd talked about at breakfast with his family. He couldn't remember the last thing he'd said to Peter - something stupid, probably, a "good fight," or, "see you next week."

He knew what he'd said in the will - that he loved Peter, that he was sorry - but the will was different. It was something he'd updated fairly often - they all had, when Val was born, when there was a change on the team, but for years, he'd reserved the team, his family, the best thing he had for Peter.

"Share, you mooch," Peter said, snagging the spoon out of Johnny's hand.

"Get your own," Johnny told him, digging in the drawer for a second one.

"This is my own," Peter said, grinning down at the carton. His gaze flickered up, the briefest moment of heat.

Voorr had said it during the fight while they orbited each other, twin suns, laughing: "Death or glory, Johnny Storm? You chose well." He'd cast his inferno gaze Peter's way. "He burns for you, burning boy."

Johnny hoped so.

Like the sword or the axe, his shattered ribs or the time he'd faced Kal Blackbane in the arena and learned the hard way that the Light Brigade did not hesitate, Johnny didn't want to pretend it hadn't happened, the way he was afraid Peter might if he didn't try.

Their spoons clashed, Peter laughed, and Johnny leaned the rest of the way in. Their second kiss was the opposite of their first, gentle, unharried. Peter tasted sweet like ice cream, his lips cold even as the rest of him blazed. Johnny had always loved how hot he ran.

Peter surged forward, ice cream clattering forgotten to the ground as he pinned Johnny back against the corner, strong hands at his waist like an anchor, keeping him grounded where he belonged.

"I didn't know," he mumbled, nose brushing Johnny's. "I wasn't sure if I could -"

"You kissed me already, remember?" Johnny said. He put his hands on Peter's steady shoulders, just holding on. "It was one hell of a welcome home."

"I thought maybe you thought that was all it was," Peter said.

"Was it?" Johnny asked.

"No," Peter said. The next kiss was hot and wanting, the kind Johnny used to dream about - long, lean Peter Parker, pinning him back and taking control. "No, god, don't be stupid. I missed you so much."

"Don't call me stupid, stupid. Me too," Johnny said. He rested his forehead against Peter's, eyes closed, enjoying the mingling on their body heat wherever their skin pressed together, Peter's rough palms pressed up under his shirt, skating across his ribs just inches from where a big ugly Talaxian had torn him open. He took Peter by the wrist and kept his hand pressed there. "So much."

Peter kissed his jaw - claws digging into his face - and his chin - the edge of Annihilus' upswing - and the side of his neck where another fighter had held him down and choked him while the crowd hissed and booed over a fight too neat.

New memories over old wounds. Bandaids. Johnny could remember how to do this.

He curled his hand around the back of Peter's head, bringing his face back up, knocking their noses together. Peter's brown eyes were blown wide, going a little cross-eyed when he tried to meet Johnny's, and his hands were so steady. Johnny couldn't help but smile when he looked at him. "Hey. Kiss me again."


End file.
